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William Heald to Thomas Rotch, 6th mo 7th 1818

Page 1

B-86-4
I have read the narative of Capt James Riley I have
sympathized with him in his sufferings, and feel a degree
of thankfulness to that Providence who snached him (and
his companions)from the hand of the cruel and Iron
hearted barbarian, and from that State of Slavery and
wretchedness to which he was doomed and restored him
to his native Country,and to the bosom of his family
I have also rejoiced in that truely noble decleration which
he was enabled to make after all his sufferings were over
"I have now learned to look with compasion on my en-
"slaved and oppressed fellow creature; and my future
"life shall be devoted to their cause; I will exert all
"my remaining faculties to redeem the enslaved, and
"to shiver in pieces the rod of oppression. perhaps the object
of the great disposer of events in suffering him to fall into
the hands of those monsters, was to fit and prepare him
for an instrument in his hand, to undo the heavy
burthens and and let the oppressed go free.
Is not the American slave holder with all the advanta-
ges of the Christian religion, and his boasted civili-
zation, violating the eternal laws of justice more flagrant
ly, than the savage Arab whose system of religion ad-
mits of treating his fellow creature of another religion
in this cruel manner, and if it is so ordered in the
nature of things, that a man cannot do another a
moral injury without injuring himself, is not
the slave holder, thus made wretched by his own
folly and injustice entitled to our commiseration
and is it not a duty in his fellow citizens to endeavour
to render his situation more happy to himself and
useful to society by prevailing on him to do jus-
tice to the injured party, but did not the noble Captain
grant too great a toleration to slavery when he said

B-86-4
I have read the narative of Capt James Riley I have
sympathized with him in his sufferings, and feel a degree
of thankfulness to that Providence who snached him (and
his companions)from the hand of the cruel and Iron
hearted barbarian, and from that State of Slavery and
wretchedness to which he was doomed and restored him
to his native Country,and to the bosom of his family
I have also rejoiced in that truely noble decleration which
he was enabled to make after all his sufferings were over
"I have now learned to look with compasion on my en-
"slaved and oppressed fellow creature; and my future
"life shall be devoted to their cause; I will exert all
"my remaining faculties to redeem the enslaved, and
"to shiver in pieces the rod of oppression. perhaps the object
of the great disposer of events in suffering him to fall into
the hands of those monsters, was to fit and prepare him
for an instrument in his hand, to undo the heavy
burthens and and let the oppressed go free.
Is not the American slave holder with all the advanta-
ges of the Christian religion, and his boasted civili-
zation, violating the eternal laws of justice more flagrant
ly, than the savage Arab whose system of religion ad-
mits of treating his fellow creature of another religion
in this cruel manner, and if it is so ordered in the
nature of things, that a man cannot do another a
moral injury without injuring himself, is not
the slave holder, thus made wretched by his own
folly and injustice entitled to our commiseration
and is it not a duty in his fellow citizens to endeavour
to render his situation more happy to himself and
useful to society by prevailing on him to do jus-
tice to the injured party, but did not the noble Captain
grant too great a toleration to slavery when he said